


From the Surface

by HappyKonny



Category: Septiplier - Fandom, Youtube RPF, youtube - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, I just love steampunk and robots, Steampunk, i have no idea what this is, robot!mark, tinkerer!jack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-14 04:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyKonny/pseuds/HappyKonny
Summary: Jack, a tinkerer living in the capital, finds an abandoned and broken automaton one day while looking for materials.He would've never thought that fixing the robot would cause so much trouble for him.





	1. Chapter 1

Pulling the golden pocket watch out of his pocket, he let it swing around his hand, dropping it into it perfectly. Pressing the button, the watch sprung open and showed its insides, making it able for Jack to read the time. Just a little after eight. Pressing the lid back on, he let the watch swing back, the chain unfurling from his hand, before he let it drop back into the pocket it belonged into. "Gonna be fockin' late", he grumbled to himself, shoving his hands into his pockets and picking up his pace. 

Entering the already awaiting elevator, Jack pressed the button to get to the twentieth floor -five above his own and fifteen above the lowest floor. The gate closed and the elevator grumbled, before starting to move upwards. He watched the different floors appear and disappear on the other side of the gate, waiting almost impatiently. He was late already, well he was _going_  to be late if this stupid elevator didn’t move any faster.

Finally it stopped at his requested floor, the gate opening with a groan -which he paid no mind to- and exited. Continuing with his quick pace, his hands still buried deep in the pockets of his coat, he rushed past other people mingling around. He had no time for any of this, he had places to be! To be exact, he had an important meeting to attend to, where his friends and colleges were waiting for him.

Rounding another corner, he finally reached his destination and entered through the large wooden doors. Not slowing down, he continued down the hallways, ignoring the people around him, until he found the conference room their meeting was being held at. He absolutely did _not_  want to be here, but he had to, so here he was.  
Entering the room quietly, he was relieved to see that they hadn’t started yet. So he quietly sunk into his seat, right next to Suzy and Felix, before the meeting officially started.

.

After the meeting, Jack spent some time with his friends. Talking about the latest events that happened, dreaming about going to the surface again soon, making plans to work together on some projects.  
Jack was a rather well known tinkerer among the lower floors, people generally came to him if there was something to repair or to build. He even had the pleasure of repairing an automaton once or twice. Nothing really complicated sadly, but still. 

He didn’t feel the need to envy his more successful friend Felix in any way, even though the man lived on the tenth floor and had a beautiful girlfriend. Jack was content with where he was and what he did. And he was sure he would be able to climb higher up in the floors and someday live as comfortably as Felix did. He didn’t even want to live up on the surface, knowing how the people there acted and behaved. They were all high stuck up, looking down on everyone living below ground. Jack did not like those people.

When he parted with his friends, he informed them he’d be going down to the last floor. Down there wasn’t much, but for a tinkerer it was a very familiar place.  
Down there almost everything broken beyond repair got thrown in, all the garbage people didn’t need anymore and couldn’t use in one way or another. No one really lived down there either, the only people that could be found there were homeless, people that were close to dying, muggers and robbers.  
Due to the many crimes that could take place down there, it was always good to either not be alone, or at least tell someone you were there. So if you couldn’t be found, you could be searched for down there.

So Jack stood in an elevator once more, the button displaying the thirty-five glowing, the gates groaning while closing, before the rattling journey downwards began.  
With nothing to do, Jack pulled at his clothes, straightening his white shirt and grey vest, making sure the former was still tucked into his dark brown pants. Righting his tool belt he wore -since he had planned to go to the dump- he tapped his feet, stuck in dark boots, impatiently. 

He hated that the elevators always were so slow. Especially when he needed to go down _fifteen_ floors. It just took far too long. But the higher up he would live, the longer the ride down to the dump would take, if he liked it or not. And he would never pass up the opportunity to find some rare materials that were carelessly thrown away, no matter how high up he would live. Even Felix sometimes went down there!

.

Jack was startled out of his thoughts when the elevator came to a halt, the jolt almost taking Jack off balance. He caught his footing though and proceeded to leave through the opened gate into the darkness of the thirty-fifth floor.  
There wasn’t that much light around, a few lightposts scattered around. There never seemed to be much of a structure down here, ranging from the pathways to how things were organized -if they were at all. But Jack knew his way around by now, and he knew where to look for the good parts, garbage the people on the higher floors threw away and landed down here.

After a good hour or two of gathering materials in a backpack Jack had brought with him, he decided to go back to his shop. He had found quite a few good items, some things he could use and some he could probably sell as well. What he didn’t expect to see on his way back, was a body.  
Now, seeing drunks and homeless people down here wasn’t unusual, but the person Jack spotted didn’t look the part. On the contrary, the person looked like he belonged to the _surface_. Normally, Jack would’ve just continued on his way, but something about this person just seemed _off_.

Approaching the guy, Jack could tell why. The man sitting on the ground, leaning against a pile of useless metal parts, didn’t move _at all_. Not even his chest was rising and falling! He looked like he was dead. So Jack, clearly confused as to _why_  someone from the _surface_  would be down here, decided to check it out further.  
The man had raven black hair, which looked soft and was very tousled. He had a stubble adorning his jaw, his eyes closed. His clothes looked soft, made out of expensive material, showing subtle but complicated designs. Jack also spotted the chain of a pocket watch, which he didn’t dare to touch.

While inspecting the dead? man closer, Jack finally noticed what seemed so off about him. At the side of his neck, the skin was torn open and ripped off. But there was no blood and no flesh underneath, and when Jack looked closer, he could see that this wasn’t a human being he had found. He had found an automaton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if this will be continued or finished.  
> I'm known for now completing my stories, but I really had fun writing this!  
> I just really like steampunk and such things, and though I don't really have any ideas for this...  
> Well, let's hope I'll write more some time!
> 
> Otherwise, feel free to pick this story up whenever and wherever you like!  
> Oh and also, the characters will probably be all OoC ^^;


	2. Chapter 2

Jack was pacing back and forth, hands in his hair. He was lowkey freaking out. He had found an automaton, a humanoid robot, a servant probably. And he looked to be in a good condition, besides his neck of course, and that he was broken without an obvious reason.   
This was a find of a lifetime! If Jack could fix this, he would be one of the, if not _the_  only person to have an automaton living below the eight floor. And one that looked so fancy as well! Well, he couldn’t let the automaton continue wearing these clothes, Jack didn’t want him to get stolen or something, but it was still amazing.

Gathering his bearings, Jack stopped his pacing, turning to look at the robot again. He didn’t care about anything else he had found, this was the most important thing right now. He was glad he had his bag, where he could store the most important findings, before he carefully lifted the robot from the ground to his feet. It was an inch taller than Jack, but thankfully not very heavy. Well, not as heavy as he would be if he was a normal human being.  
Jack proceeded to _very_  carefully and _very_  slowly lift the robot onto his back, like he was giving him a piggy back ride. It was for one, because it made it easier for Jack to transport him, and on for two, it seemed like Jack was just carrying a guy around, and not a robot that was worthy of being stolen.

The way back to his shop was uneventful, thankfully. The shop was already closed, Jack had closed up before leaving for the meeting, since he never knew how long they would be, so these days always were short work days. Jack didn’t really mind, meetings were maybe once a month, if not less, so he could live with a shorter day.  
Going inside, Jack walked behind the counter and through the door, into the backroom, were he did his work on larger projects, that took longer or were more complicated.

The room had a table were Jack did the most work to the left, in the middle against the wall. To the right of it was another table, which was completely empty, where he could work on bigger and sometimes heavier things. To the left of his desk was a little drawer, the rest of the wall to the door was lined with shelves and some bookshelves. The wall across from the door, which had the empty table to the far left, was lined with drawers and hanging cabinets. And lastly, on the right wall, almost obscuring the door, was a large  bulletin board, on which were plans, sketches, pictures and some other writing pinned on.  
There were also some chairs in the middle of the room, mostly obscured by things on them, only two were free. One was usually always free, for Jack to sit down at his desk.

Jack dragged one of the free chairs away from the middle and let the robot fall on that. He first needed to check what was wrong with it, and that was easier done when it was sitting than laying on his table. So Jack carefully began to take off the vest and shirt the automaton was wearing, to take a look at its torso and arms. Just because the only damage visible was on his neck, didn’t mean there wasn’t more underneath the clothes. It didn’t make sense for Jack to throw away perfectly good clothes, but then again, it could be to hide that this wasn’t a real human.  
As soon as Jack saw the chest of the robot, he could tell there was far more damage than he had thought. The chest of the poor robot was ripped open, and even on his arms was a lot of damage. Jack lifted the robot off the chair and set him on the table, to get a better look at the insides of its chest.

It was _incredible_. Jack had _never_  seen anything like it before. This automaton was very clearly of high quality, most likely made on one of the first two floors, maybe even on the surface itself. It was _amazing_. The problem with it was though, that Jack had no idea how to fix this. At least he couldn’t make sense out of many mechanics inside of the bot, since it was much more complicated than any bots that could be found on his floor. The most advanced bot he had ever seen before had been from the tenth floor, the one from Felix’s neighbor who had needed help, and the blonde had recommended him.  
But this automaton was _much_  more complicated. Jack could tell that it resembled a human rather well, some parts resembling human organs. There were definite “lungs” as part of the cooling system and a kind of battery or something similar as “heart”. Cables and wires everywhere, an organized chaos. It fascinated Jack.

After a good while, Jack had no idea how long he had been staring at it all, he sat the bot back into the chair, and ran his fingers along its scalp, hairline and neck. He found the power button on the neck, at the lower part of the cervical spine. While searching, Jack couldn’t help himself and let his hand run through the hair. It was very soft to the touch, and Jack guessed it was probably real hair. By the complicity of the automaton and high quality of the clothes, he would at least assume so.  
After a bit of more searching, he found the fine crease in the synthetic skin. After a little trial and error, he was able to open part of the skull. It was very well hidden from sight -this automaton was definitely made to look as human as possible.  
Looking inside the skull, Jack inspected the parts inside. It was cramped and very full, there were parts which Jack had never seen and couldn’t even guess what it was for. But he found something he knew, which were the slots for the memory chips. There were a few missing, which made Jack frown. He decided, if he was gonna repair this bot, it needed the empty slots filled. So he went to his little drawer and searched for some empty memory chips. After he had those, he placed them where they belonged.  
Since everything else seemed to be in order in the head, as far as he could tell at least, he carefully closed it again.

Jack decided that he shouldn’t work on this today, right now. He already knew that he was missing some things, especially synthetic skin, so he couldn’t fix it today even if he wanted to. So Jack got to order the missing parts -checking which skin colour the bot had with a chart- and let it sit in the chair for tomorrow. Even if he _really_  wanted to fix it now, he had to be patient.  
So he left the workroom and locked the door, the front door then as well, and went upstairs to his living quarters. He was glad he lived right above his shop, it made everything much easier, and safer. He could much more easily hear if anything was going on downstairs after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think I wouldn't continue this? HA! I did!  
> But updates are probably gonna be slower? I dunno, I got a few stories going on right now, so yeah.  
> Did y'all know this is all kind of complicated? The city Jack lives in and all that shit  
> Y'all know there are 35 floors, and I've written down a lot of people and where they live, even if we will probably never meet them in this story. But maybe, who knows? I don't.  
> On other news, I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no clue what the trouble is Jack will get in if he repairs mister roboto. But hey, needed to make an interesting summary, right? xD  
> Anyways, I have no clue if this will be finished, how long it will be and how often it will be updated. Just so that y'all know.


End file.
